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Confusion often arises because the name daddy-long-legs is also applied to two distantly related bugs: the harvestmen (which are arachnids but not spiders) and cellar spiders, which have a potent venom but whose fangs are too short to pierce human skin.

Mr Lamb said crane flies, which are a major food group for rooks, were not poisonous.

He said: “They’re not venomous at all.

“The spiders are venomous but they are a different animal altogether.”